NBA The Starters - Are the Houston Rockets currently the Best Team in the league?

Media conspiracy

 

Not the best but we are the hottest and the team with the most potential to get better to challenge GS and Cleveland.

 

I don't understand the worry about Harden being unmotivated. Last year was a culmination of Harden being injured in the offseason leading to being out of shape early, poor team chemistry, unnecessary Dwight post-ups, a general lack of shooting and poor coaching. And despite that, he still had the best statistical season of his career.

Anything last year is clearly an anomaly to what has been a career of motivation to turn himself from a 6th man to an MVP candidate.

 

Huge test coming up against the Spurs coming up.

 

I think he was also complacent after having a massive year in 015. This season he is playing chip on his shoulder.

 

He had career highs in points per game, assists per game and rebounds per game. He also shot 44% from the field and 36% from 3 which are both career averages. What's so complacent about that? He was hardly the problem last year. The overall team just sucked.

 

What's funny to me is that people like to say that his defense regressed last year... It didn't. It was just more magnified with the entire team struggling. He's always been a pretty bad defender, at least since he's been a Rocket. Now people are saying that his defense has improved... nope, it hasn't. He just has a better team around him... Hmmm let's make him MVP candidate.

 

Yeah! Statutory Rapist was at the top of my list.

 

Yeah, i dropped the sports package as well and just watch on YouTube, I do miss NBA Gametime on those nights with nothing else to do, frequent live lookins and a 4 hour block of basketball was always nice.

The Starters have always been pro Rockets, but not homer about it, its refreshing.

 

Interestingly, this would go against what Morey has said...that we need 3 stars and be top 10 in both offense and defense.

 

Ultimately all that matters is that we are the 3rd most winningest team in the regular season over the past 10 years. That is the Maury's point of pride and that is how this team has been built - to be a good to great regular season team. I'm resigned to that and enjoying our regular season beat downs of other teams.

 

Is it me or are we blowing teams out quite a bit more this year?

I believe the offensive fire power we have makes lesser offensive teams try and keep up and it causes them to lose identities.

It's been fun to watch.

 

my two words would be "Cry Baby"

 

I believe that the team is quite close to being there, but I don't think that it is there for the same reason that I feel that last year's Golden State team was better. Bogut made a huge difference to them last year. We don't have an elite interior presence. Capella and the rest of our big man rotation is solid, but it's not enough to get those critical defensive stops needed in the playoffs, in my opinion. Golden State has shown that can be overcome, to an extent, in the playoffs, but I don't think that we're quite there. My hope is that Harden can offset that with his drives and dishes in the interior on the offensive end. On the defensive end, I'm not sure how this team responds when those critical moments arise.

 

We are exceeding expectations, even the optimists' like myself who thought our ceiling was 3 in the West. We are legit top 5 in the league. We are probably better than the Clippers and Raptors. I think we could beat the Spurs in a series, but they have a slight edge. I don't think we can beat GSW or Cleveland in a series.

Frankly, I'm thrilled. We don't need to be best in the league for this season to be a success for fans.

 

Agreed. Though haven't dug into the stats. But Gordon, Bev, Dekker, Harrell, Nene.... they're not always all doing well (except Gordon recently), but one or two are usually doing well and that usually makes you even at least with the other team's bench. When 3+ of them do well, as seems to happen regularly, with MDA doing a solid job with rotations so keeping starters with bench players, and you have a solid 8-10 man rotation where hopefully there is little drop-off throughout the games.

But no, the Rockets are not the best team in the league. That's laughable.
Their defense and lack of interior strength will get exposed.

They can make deep playoff run ... IF Gordon and Anderson can both hit near 40% on threes in the playoffs. Because they'll just have too much offense at that point, even for their sub-par defense.

 

I wouldn't say the best right now, but we're heading in that direction,if we could keep playing the way that we've played in the last 10 games.

 

let's focus on the next 3 games...the bkn game was a bit unsettling...

 

Where does it start? Watched the first two mins and had to turn it off. Its like they gave reddit commentors their own show

 

As long as that defender can shoot 3's, I agree. But the offense could suffer if you put in a guy who defends well but cant shoot. A big guy who shoots well AND defends is rare. And when available, expensive. And highly sought after. In other words, likely unattainable.